Small-scale success

Here are some random news bits and observations from the Matchbox Line preview:

The long-awaited and highly-touted Alfa Romeo GTA may be destined for a short life. Alfa Romeo is insisting that Matchbox only do the car in correct colors, which were limited to red and white. They’ve done two shades of red, white, and a couple of very limited-run event specials. Either Matchbox discovers new shades of red, Alfa Romeo lightens up, or we don’t see this casting again until the impasse is settled. May we suggest you go and find what remaining ones there are on the pegs now, just in case?

Newer castings have a symbol on the chassis: an elephant. Why? The factory in Bangkok, Thailand, had been a Matchbox factory under previous owners, and the current owners were thrilled when Mattel awarded them with Matchbox once again. The elephant, national symbol of Thailand, is meant to give the line workers a sense of pride knowing that their work will be in kids’ and collectors’ hands all across the world. Matchbox designers Mike Heralda and Ryu Asada worked with the factory in Bangkok to design the elephant, which will appear on the chassis of all future Thailand-made Matchbox castings.

Emergency vehicles will increasingly have real town affiliations attached to them. There’s a San Diego, California, fire truck coming, as well as the El Segundo, California, Crown Vic cop car out now. Hummelstown Pennsylvania, New Orleans and DFW airports (that’s Dallas/Ft. Worth to you non-travelin’ folk) are also on the license-agreement list.

At least two new wheel designs are coming out. One is a plain five-spoke wheel, dished with a contoured spoke, that will look good on muscle cars and plenty of other examples. The second is a split five-spoke that on first blush resembles the Hot Wheels PR5 wheel, but has more rim and less spoke, making it seem a little less blingy.

There are two supposedly secret Matchboxes coming — their announcement is tied to the release of the real cars, and while their place in the lineup was announced, details were kept hush-hush. Until now! The first is a model of the upcoming 620hp ZR1 Corvette, an early prototype of which we saw firsthand. It looks good, and even has the clear window in the hood, but the engineers are now trying to figure out how to replicate the carbon-fiber roof panel without breaking the bank, cost-wise. The second car, still a secret (sort of), is a Lotus that will be announced at the London Motor Show in July. Though Matchbox reps are officially mum and wouldn’t even be dragged into a chat off the record, this is probably the as-yet-unnamed replacement for the Esprit. Spy photos of the real car are available on all of your favorite new-car Web sites if you want to get a sense of what is coming; between Matchbox’s track record with Lotus (dating back four decades, to the Europa) and the fact that they’re launching their model concurrently with the press launch in Europe, we’re satisfied that it’ll look good.

(This post originally appeared in the May 15, 2008, issue of the Hemmings eWeekly Newsletter.)